Deep thoughts with Jack Handy: Belated Star Trek Reboot Edition

[sasha_feather]

So I can't sleep, and I started thinking about the 2009 Star Trek reboot, and why I never bothered to watch it again after I saw it in the theater, even though multiple friends owned copies.

You see, in my experience, Star Trek was a happy place where Good won in the end.


Should I warn for spoilers here?

And though I liked the action and scenery, I did not view this film as one where Good won out. This was a story where Vulcan was destroyed. Vulcan. Was. Destroyed. The good guys LOST.

It gave the movie a sad ending, a sad pall over everything.

I mean, other Star Treks went to dark places, but they were usually dark places concerning choices that characters made (Sisko), or ethically suspect things the Federation did (the Maquis) etc. Not, you know, killing off nearly a whole species.

Anyways, that is part of why I won't be seeing the 2nd one (along with fandom's bad reviews, and whitewashing, etc). And that is the stuff I think about late at night.

xo

Comments

[starlady]

Good choice. The second one makes the first one look good. And then I read an interview where some dumb asshole had the gall to assert that the AOS is some kind of "healing the timeline" and I wanted to punch someone.

[sasha_feather]

Whaaaaat *Hulk smash!!*

I watched some Trek documentary recently where the creators of TNG etc. were *so* careful to try and follow Gene Roddenberry's vision. Like, GR wasn't perfect by any means, but he had a vision and they wanted to honor it. When they deviated from said vision, they did it deliberately and with a certain amount of inner turmoil.

I'm certainly not opposed to reboots, but I am really opposed to JJ Abrams! LOL. Maybe they can reboot the reboot in few years, like they did with Spider Man, and do something else different. Unlikely, but a kid can dream.

(also, icon love)

[luinied]

The destruction of Vulcan seemed to me to be one of those things in fiction where a place with lots and lots of people is utterly destroyed and yet it's meant to be more a symbol or motivator than the actual massive loss it would otherwise be. And I get that hearing about more people affected by a tragedy actually tends to make most unaffected people less empathic (apparently why savvy organizations focus on telling one heartstring-tugging story at a time), but I'm pretty sick of cities (or, in interplanetary science fiction, planets) being used as these symbolic population packets like that.

[sasha_feather]

The fridging of Spock's mother: also unpleasant.